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Monthly Archives: August 2013

I hoisted Li’l Fatty out of his cot and popped him on the ground.
“Here we go,” I thought, waiting for the ‘I want titty’ tantrum.
But he just turned and plodded out of the nursery.
I followed him in to the kitchen, where he yanked open a cupboard door, pulled out a plastic bowl and threw it at my feet.
“Geh,” he said, looking at me questioningly.
“You want Weetbix? You want Weetbix now?” I asked.
“Geh,” he said, picking the bowl up and throwing it at my feet again.
“Too bad,” I muttered and heaved him over to the couch, popping him on the boob for his morning feed.
Li’l Fatty is about to hit 15-months-old.
I’d always planned to breastfeed him for 12 months.
When that time came, it just seemed easier to keep going.
He’d have food and a bottle during the day, but first thing in the morning and last thing at night was a breastfeed.
Cheap, nutritious and bonding, plus it kept baby plump and mummy not so plump.
But I’d felt weaning time approaching.
I wasn’t planning on taking Li’l Fatty on our honeymoon and a breast pump wasn’t exactly a sexy item to pack.
Breastfeeding had also become mildly inconvenient and a bit embarrassing.
“I’m only doing it morning and night, I’m going to stop soon,” I’d mutter apologetically to anyone in earshot as I hoisted my toddler on to my lap, wondering why we feel guilty if we feed for anything less than six months and anything more than 12.
A week after he demanded Weetbix for brekky, Li’l Fatty, his father, brother and I came home from a birthday dinner, full and exhausted.
I lay him out on my lap.
He smiled lazily, nestled his nose into my nipple, and fell asleep.
There it was.
I’d been made redundant again.
With a full weekend of work coming up, I decided it was a good time to stop permanently.
I’d start a few days earlier by cutting his night feed completely.
I put him to bed that first one, came back into the loungeroom, sat down and began to cry.
“What’s up?” Learner Dad asked, moving over to hug me.
I’d told him I was weaning Li’l Fatty but, as is a man’s way, he hadn’t really noticed.
I’d denied him so much bottle-bonding time with his son, yet he’d never uttered a word, either for or against it.
That night he assured me Li’l Fatty was happy and healthy either way, that we could afford plenty of milk, and that I’d still squeeze into my wedding dress despite losing my little calorie vacuum.
But, as I lay in bed that night, none of that mattered.
All I could think of was Li’l Fatty’s smiley blue eyes looking up at me, his chubby little fingers running through my hair, or exploring my mouth, as he fed.
The little ‘gorr’ (‘gone’) he’d eventually murmur in his husky, tired voice, milk running down his cheek, as he drunkenly passed out.
Now my milk is almost gone.
I don’t think being upset meant weaning was the wrong decision.
Apparently the hormonal shift largely accounts for a mummy’s sadness in letting go.
It’s just the end of another stage.
Like wraps and rolling.
Next it’ll be bye-bye to spoon feeds and sippy cups.
Prams and dummies.
Then dirty nappies.
I’m not sure I’ll lay in bed at night fondly remembering that end of him though.

• I stick my finger up at a smartarse Master Eight when he’s not looking?
• I let him sleep on a towel when he’s had an accident at 3am?
• I steal money from his piggy bank to ‘loan’ to the Tooth Fairy?
• I dress Master Eight as the same book character every single year (even though his size 4 Superman outfit is now ridiculously tight [and Superman isn’t really a book character])?
• I occasionally make him wear shorts in winter because I haven’t learned to patch trousers?
• I eat most of the lollies from his party bag after he’s gone to bed?
• I offer to read every second page of his book so I can get back to doing nothing on the couch?
• I hide Li’l Fatty’s favourite book because I’ve simply had enough of ‘green sheep’?
• I often give him finger food, forgetting he had his fingers in his own poo earlier that day?
• I once pretended not to notice when he weed on the floor and rubbed his hand in it?
• I give my children fruit buns, convincing myself the word ‘fruit’ means it’s healthy?
• I am almost out the driveway before Master Eight has his seatbelt on?
• He occasionally goes to school with a sandwich that has nothing in it?
• I tell him Santa’s elves are watching even though it’s only April?
• I ‘accidentally’ vacuum up the teeny tiny Lego pieces that plague his bedroom floor?
• Wine o’clock sometimes starts well before their bedtime?
• I had the occasional wine during pregnancy?
• I tell Master Eight I’ll tape the rest of Big Brother – but don’t?
• I let him watch Big Brother in the first place?
• I time him to run and fetch the newspaper of a morning?
• I tell him he can barrack for whichever team he likes but keep buying him Collingwood pyjamas?
• I give Li’l Fatty Baby Panadol after convincing myself his bad mood is definitely ‘teething’?
• I let him play with the DVD player when his dad’s not home?
• I sometimes serve Master Eight two minute noodles for lunch AND dinner on a Saturday?
• I sometimes serve Li’l Fatty a tub of yoghurt for lunch AND dinner on any day?
• I consistently throw their ‘lost tooth’ and ‘new tooth’ photos up on Facebook? And still have Master Eight’s bloody first tooth hidden in my cupboard?
• I stalk them at night, sitting in the dark by their beds, listening to them breathe?
• I’d kill, steal or starve for them if absolutely necessary?

“Alison, quick, they’re going to throw the bouquet! Where’s Alison? Has anyone seen Alison?
“Are there any single girls here besides Alison?”
Being the token singleton at weddings for most of my 20’s and early 30’s, I was the prime target for the bouquet toss.
I’d happily fly under the radar for most of the night, despite the fact my single status meant I was regularly pointed out to ‘single-for-a-reason groomsmen’ or that I rounded out the numbers on the couples table by being seated next to ‘cousin Gary-who’s-never-had-a-girlfriend’.
When I was first old enough to attend weddings, I thought the bouquet toss was a bit of a, well, toss, but jumped in the heaving pack of single ladies for fun.
As I got older and my number of single friends started dwindling, I’d loiter at the back of the pack, behind the fresh crop of giggling single teens, feeling slightly conspicuous.
Finally, in the end, I’d disappear to the toilet when I got even a whiff of that bouquet (even if Aunt Molly was right and this one did have my name on it).
I’d mostly been a happy single woman.
Sometimes a wedding between the right people would tug gently at my heart strings, make me wonder where my own soul mate was, but mostly they were just a good excuse to party.
And being single meant you could flirt, dance and drink with whoever you liked (even if the only option left was cousin Gary).
But then came the bouquet toss.
A heady mix of daisies and desperation would hit the air, as your married friends sought you out.
“Here’s one, I found one!” they’d shout smugly, shoving you toward the dance floor.
And suddenly you felt that being single wasn’t good enough.
You had to catch that flower so you could catch a man before you caught depression and ended it all.
There are dangers in going in for the bouquet toss.
You’re at the mercy of all sorts of slips – dress slips down, feet slip up.
You’re also at the mercy of the aggressive single chick who will happily bash through anyone who gets between her and that bunch of flowers.
There’s always one.
And it’s hardly worth the risk when, at the end of the day, the bride is always going to aim for her ‘best-friend-who-she-just-knows-is-going-to-get-engaged-any-day-now’.
Will I toss my bouquet at my wedding?
Would it make me a hypocrite if I did?
Would I disappoint the single ladies if I didn’t?
Or will they all be hiding in the toilet anyway?
My mum had hers laid on her mother’s grave.
Luckily I don’t have a grave waiting for mine.
But I have plenty of living loved ones who might appreciate it.
Like cousin Gary.
Maybe I’ll just throw it to him.

A boogie board sits in the carport at the bottom of our driveway.
To anyone passing, we look like a ‘beachy sorta’ family.
The kind that generates a whimsical smile, that makes you wish your own kids weren’t obsessed with the Wii and you weren’t obsessed with sun cancer.
And that you spent all of summer knee deep in either salt water or sand.
But behind that board lies a far different story.
It hides the tale of a six-year-old boy forced to surf it.
Poppy Pete and I had taken Master Six on a trip to St Helens late in summer.
Learner Dad was working and I was pregnant with Li’l Fatty so it was just the one from each generation.
Caught up in nostalgia from my own childhood trips up the coast, we checked in at the same old caravan park and headed off on adventure.
Peron Dunes is an area of seemingly eternal sand, rising randomly into soft mounds and steep hills.
Dune buggies and sand boarders aren’t an uncommon site.
My parents would take my brothers and I there every year to happily steer our boogie boards down the best slopes.
But Poppy Pete was no longer the young dad of our decades-ago family adventures and far from a child, I was now carrying one instead.
So, in our frail states, we had high hopes we could vicariously re-live our holiday adventures through poor little Master Six.
We ignored his cries of ‘sand in my eyes’ and ‘sand in my shoes’ as we battled the wind in search of the perfect slope.
“So you kneel here at this gap and just push yourself forward,” Poppy Pete said, explaining how to launch into a sand surf.
Terrified, Master Six looked down the giant slope at me, sitting and smiling in anticipation at the bottom.
“I don’t know if I want to,” he declared unhappily.
“You’ll be fine,” I yelled out, holding up my phone to film him.
Tentatively he pushed off.
The board hit the sand and ground to an immediate standstill, Master Six sliding a further metre or so beyond on his tummy.
He looked up at me, mouth full of sand, eyes full of despair.
“I can’t do it,” he implored.
We insisted he try again.
“You’ll love it,” I assured him.
After about seven more attempts, each with the same result, we called it a day.
That evening we went fishing.
We bought a line and bait and headed off to a jetty.
I recalled the flathead we’d haul in back in the day, gobbling it up for dinner at our campsite.
“I think I’ve caught one,” Master Six said excitedly, starting to wind in his line.
Suddenly he was pulled violently forward, stopping only moments before he toppled over the jetty.
The fishing line was gone.
We bought fish and chips for tea instead.
The next morning, we headed to Binalong Bay.
Strong winds forced us back into the car so we headed round to our other favourite beach – Beer Barrel Bay.
It was time, Poppy Pete and I decided, to introduce Master Six to the joys of boogie boarding.
He was going to love this!
“So you just wait until the wave is nearly on you and then jump on,” I explained to him, knee deep in the water, as he glanced fearfully behind him, teeth chattering, lips blue.
“Here comes one now… Go!” Poppy shouted.
To his credit, Master Six gave it his best but once his tummy hit the board, both he and it rolled over.
He came up spluttering and coughing.
“You said ‘go’ too late Dad,” I admonished. “He needed to get on it earlier than that. Look, try again honey.”
A few failed attempts later and my father and I had found ourselves in a shouting match.
“He’s got to paddle with his arms.”
“No, he just has to kick!”
“He needs to use his arms to keep his balance.”
“No, he just has to hold on tight.”
Hang on, where was Master Six?
We stopped and looked around.
He was off in the distance, on shore, making sandcastles.
The boogie board was floating out toward the horizon.
Poppy Pete and I looked at each other.
And trudged out of the ocean.
That was it then.
Master Six hadn’t surfed the sand or the ocean.
He hadn’t liked it, let alone loved it.
Had my brothers and I been older when we did it? Braver?
Did we enjoy it more because we had kids with us?
Or had the pressure simply been too much for Master Six?
Whatever the case, I felt ashamed.
I’d always prided myself on not being a pushy mother with the Master.
Even when all the other kids his age seemed to like the swings, I didn’t push it.
Even when all the other kids his age seemed to like bananas, I didn’t push it.
Even when all the other kids at Wiggle Bay didn’t mind getting wet, I didn’t push it.
I let him stand on the side in his dry little togs, content to watch.
How far should we push our kids?
Is there an occasion for pushing them at all?
When we know there’s something we absolutely loved as a kid, it’s hard not to force our offspring into trying it out too.
Whether it’s water slides or watermelon, ice skating or icy poles.
In my experience, they do eventually try – and like – most things.
Master Seven still doesn’t do bananas but he adores the swings.
And he’d dominate Wiggle Bay if I took him back there now.
He’ll probably one day have a crack at surfing.
Or then again, maybe he won’t.
Maybe that first lesson will be enough to deter him for life.